KIELLAND-NETTVERKET

OLDER NEWS

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE KIELLAND NETWORK 28.05.2025

Breakthrough for Kielland Victims

Everything indicates that there is now a majority in the Norwegian Parliament to provide compensation to the survivors and bereaved families of the Alexander L. Kielland disaster. The following parties and individuals appear to support the compensation proposal: Rødt, SV, MDG, KrF, FrP, Sp, Venstre, Pasientfokus, and Christian Tybring-Gjedde.

The case will be discussed in the Norwegian Parliament in plenary session on June 5th, and with Venstre's support today, the majority seems secured.

• "We have worked for many years for truth, justice, and reconciliation, and now it finally looks like we are being heard. We are so grateful to the parliamentarians who have shown responsibility and compassion in this matter, and we are happy that it now looks like there will be a majority for a compensation scheme," says Anders Helliksen, a survivor of the Kielland disaster and chairman of the Kielland Network.

The Kielland Network represents the survivors and bereaved families of Norway's largest industrial accident. 123 men died when the accommodation platform capsized in a storm at the Ekofisk field in the North Sea on March 27, 1980. 89 people survived under dramatic circumstances, most of them marked for life.

The Parliament's Labor and Social Affairs Committee has issued its recommendation on the matter, indicating that there are two proposals from the committee's minority. One of these proposals is expected to gain a majority when the Parliament discusses the case in plenary session. Both proposals involve the Parliament asking the government to establish a separate compensation scheme for the survivors and bereaved families of the Alexander L. Kielland disaster.

One of these proposals includes an additional request for the Office of the Auditor General to clarify the government's responsibility for the disaster and its lack of follow-up with the survivors and bereaved families. This clarification should be based on the information provided in the research report "Empirical Investigation of the Government's Follow-up of Responsibility after the Alexander L. Kielland Disaster," which was published in January this year. It is assumed that this new investigation will be conducted and presented by the end of 2025.

The committee's recommendation indicates that the majority in the committee (Arbeiderpartiet and Høyre) will not support the compensation proposal. They will ask the Office of the Auditor General for a new assessment of the case, based on the research report "Empirical Investigation of the Government's Follow-up of Responsibility after the Alexander L. Kielland Disaster." The question the committee majority wants to clarify is whether the research report from the University of Stavanger contains new elements that change the Auditor General's previous investigation from 2021.

The majority for compensation seems secured after Venstre's parliamentary group decided to support the proposal today. Previously, Rødt, SV, Sp, MDG, KrF, FrP, Pasientfokus, and Christian Tybring-Gjedde had already given their support – meaning a majority for the Kielland victims' case.

In recent years, new information and documentation have emerged, shedding light on how the authorities neglected their responsibilities in several areas. It has been revealed that there were inadequate regulations and unclear responsibilities, particularly regarding the approval and supervision of floating installations in the oil industry during the 1970s and 80s. Additionally, it has been shown that the authorities, contrary to expert advice, failed to care for and follow up with the survivors and bereaved families of the Kielland disaster. The prosecution authorities also failed in their duties after the disaster, with the Attorney General choosing to dismiss the case on demonstrably incorrect grounds. Altogether, these are serious governmental neglects that strengthen the case for providing compensation to the Kielland victims.

The Office of the Auditor General issued severe criticism of the authorities after investigating their handling of the Kielland disaster as recently as 2021. This criticism led to a unanimous Parliament strongly apologizing for the lack of care and follow-up for the survivors and bereaved families.

Contact person: Anders Helliksen, Chairman of the Kielland Network, Mobile 468 78 706

45 years since the Alexander Kielland disaster

Today we remember the 123 who never came home.They were not primarily 123, they were one and one.

                      A son

                      A husband

                      A father

                      A brother

                      A lover

                      An uncle

                      A nephew

                      A colleague

                      A best friend

And we think of the 89 who came home.

Those who had to continue a life after having lived through an inferno, a hell, a nightmare, a surreal armageddon, with horror scenes that haunt their dreams, and never give them inner peace.

So was all this just to be forgotten? For Norway, on the watch of the Labour Party, they were to proceed as quickly as possible with oil drilling northwards. Therefore, everything with Kielland had to be covered up, traces had to be hidden and archives had to be closed. The 212 oil workers on the platform of horror, and their families, had to be sacrificed for the Norwegian oil adventure.

Because no one has received any help from society in 45 years! Not the survivors, not the parents, the widows or the children. What is a lost childhood worth? Nothing? Will no one take responsibility?

For 45 years, the Kielland victims have stood all alone against society and oil capital. None of them have helped us.

Is this the country we are so proud of? Should the Kielland disaster continue to be our national, open wound?

We are fighting for truth, justice and reconciliation. Give us closure;give us inner peace!

Gudny Hansen, who sits on the board of the Kielland Network and is a bereaved child, gave a speech at the Broken Link memorial at Smiodden today.

Today marks 45 years since the Alexander Kielland disaster. A day that the survivors will never forget, a day that we bereaved will never forget.

We commemorate not only those who perished, but all those who were on board and fought for their lives.

I say disaster and not accident. In my mind, accident is something that cannot be avoided and, in my mind, this terrible event could have been avoided.

♡ The rig was to be towed ashore for its periodic inspection but was granted an exemption by Veritas.

♡ Doors were welded open and others could not be closed because cables were in the way.

♡ Drilling equipment had been placed on board when the rig was to be converted into an oil platform, so containers and heavy equipment that were not secured gained momentum and killed and maimed some of those who perished.

That is why I use the word disaster.

None of us survivors and bereaved will ever forget the pain that was inflicted on us 45 years ago.

Now I can only speak from my own experience, having lost my father when I was 10 years old, and he was never found. I came in contact with the Kielland victims in 2016 and have worked hard with several survivors and bereaved to get the truth out. I must admit that this has been a long and hard road and at times very depressing, but it has been 100% worth it. It is an incredibly good feeling to know that you are making a difference and can honour the lives of the 212 people who were on board and their families.

27th of March 2025

Opening of the exhibition DAD

It was a strong and emotional morning at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum, with the opening of the exhibition PAPPA and the conclusion of the Documentation Project on the Alexander Kielland Disaster, which has been financed by the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion.

It is a wonderful and moving exhibition about the children who were affected by the Kielland disaster.

The presentation was as follows:

• Björn Lindberg, acting director of the Norwegian Petroleum Museum, described the work that has been done in the documentation project over the past three years, and thanked everyone involved.
• Stavanger's mayor, Tormod W. Losnedal, described how the accident affected the city and contributed to better safety in the petroleum industry.
• Else M. Tungland, who has been the project manager for the documentation project, described how much it has meant to her to meet and hear the stories of the survivors and survivors. Between 3 and 400 children were affected by the disaster.
• Anders Helliksen, the chairman of the Kielland network, thanked everyone involved for the good cooperation, and thanked the minister for his intention to meet the Kielland network in Oslo next week.
• Merete Haslund, who lost her father, performed the song Pappa by Hans Inge Fagervik. He composed the song in 2016 based on children's stories in the Memory Bank at UiS.
• Minister of Energy Terje Aasland opened the exhibition PAPPA and received the final report from the documentation project.

20th of February 2025

PRESS RELEASE January 11, 2025

A negligence not to start an investigation for negligent homicide!

New research and previously unknown documentation reveal a number of serious negligence in the authorities' handling of the Alexander L. Kielland accident.

The government failed and the prosecution made grave mistakes. These are among the findings of Professor Marie Smith-Solbakken at the University of Stavanger and a team she led to investigate the Kielland disaster in 1980.

Eva Joly is part of the research team that is publishing its report today. She has experience as a judge, public prosecutor and investigator in France. She has also worked as a special advisor in the Ministry of Justice in Norway.

"The Attorney General's decision not to pursue the criminal aspects of this disaster is incomprehensible. It was a negligence not to open an investigation for negligent homicide," states Eva Joly.

The findings give the survivors and bereaved of the largest industrial accident in Norwegian history new hope for justice and compensation:

• The prosecution authorities neglected solid documentation indicating that the accident should have been investigated as negligent homicide.

• Key documents after the accident were unavailable to the investigation commission, and documentation disappeared.

• In a government conference shortly after the accident, a document acknowledged that the level of safety in the oil industry was not at an acceptable level, but after five days the document was replaced by another in which the criticism of safety had been removed.

  
  

The report "Empirical study of the authorities' follow-up of responsibility after the Alexander L. Kielland accident" is part of the documentation project - a project adopted by the Storting in 2021 with the Norwegian Petroleum Museum as the responsible party.

Violation of rules hastened the disaster

"We have gained access to documentation that was previously unknown, and we have confirmed that important documents have disappeared," says Professor Marie Smith-Solbakken.

A key finding concerns the State Attorney and the Attorney General's failure to process a police report from 1983, which revealed, including photographic evidence, that several doors and bulkheads that were supposed to be closed were open at the time of the accident.

"Had these doors been closed, as required by the regulations, the rig would have stayed afloat for around 90 minutes longer than it actually did. Then far more people would have very likely survived this accident," says Marie Smith-Solbakken.

The researchers also point out that there are several other factors that may have affected the rig's stability and thus contributed to it capsizing so quickly. One is that much of the deck cargo was unsecured. The second, and very serious, is that a lot of equipment had been brought on board the rig to convert it from a living platform back to what it was originally designed to be – a drilling rig. Here, hoses and wires went through the door openings – openings that were supposed to be closed. In some of the openings, the alarms that were supposed to alert the control room to illegally open doors had also been deactivated.

Human rights violations

Eva Joly finds it incomprehensible that the state attorney ignored the fact that doors and hatches were left open in violation of safety regulations. This, along with deactivated alarms and a number of other objectionable circumstances, should have been investigated as negligence, and thus as negligent homicide.

"The victims of the Kielland accident were deprived of the right to full justice, as those responsible were not brought to justice," says Joly.

— That people in a deep life crisis are almost pressured by a multinational oil company to accept symbolic compensation on the condition that they will not pursue the case legally is undignified. That the survivors and bereaved were deprived of the opportunity for a fair trial is a clear violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, Joly argues.

Important documents disappeared

Another critical issue the researchers have uncovered is the lack of investigation into possible evidence loss. Key documents, essential for shedding light on responsibility and safety culture, remained inaccessible to the investigation commission. These include the logbook for the relevant period and the correspondence between the captains and the shipping company. In a meeting with the investigation commission on 30 March 1980 – just three days after the accident – ​​Stavanger Drilling confirmed that deck logs had been sent ashore earlier on the day of the accident and that they could be made available to the commission. It later emerged that several deck logs were missing and never recovered. These are matters that should have been investigated, according to the report.

The rig not approved

Anders Helliksen survived the Kielland accident under dramatic circumstances. He is the leader of the Kielland network representing the survivors and bereaved, and he is a member of the steering group for the documentation project.

— I am impressed by the thorough work the researchers have done, and I am grateful that the Storting, in addition to regretting the injustice that has befallen the Kielland victims, also allocated funds for the documentation project, says Anders Helliksen.

— Now this work has shed new light on the case and reinforced the criticism that both we and the Office of the Auditor General have made. We have specifically noted new documentation that shows that the rig was not approved as a housing platform. Our hope is that we will receive our rightful compensation, says Anders Helliksen. He succeeded Kian Reme as head of the Kielland network. Reme died in July last year and Helliksen adds:

— We have much to thank Kian for, and we on the board have promised each other to continue the work in his spirit for reconciliation, truth and justice.

The Norwegian Petroleum Museum is responsible for the Documentation Project adopted and financed by the Storting. The research report from the University of Stavanger – Empirical study of the authorities' follow-up of Responsibility after the Alexander L. Kielland accident – ​​is part of the documentation project. The report has been prepared by Marie Smith-Solbakken, Eva Joly, Frode Fanebust and Tor Gunnar Tollaksen.